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Wilkes authorities have arrested one man, and listed another suspect in the Ronda armed robbery from Tuesday, and they listed a vehicle description, notifying area law enforcement of the second suspect and his red Ford pickup with SC registration. Authorities arrested Corey Paul Higgins, 28,
of Dobson, and filed warrants on Matthew Keith Seymour, 31, of Rock Hill, S.C., charging both with armed robbery. The bulletin warned law enforcement that Seymour had been involved in violent interactions with law enforcement in the past, and urged extreme caution. The Wilkes Sheriff’s Office said that Higgins confessed to robbing a woman at the State Employees Credit Union Cashpoints ATM in the Clingman Pitstop parking lot near around 7 a.m. Tuesday when interviewed by Wilkes Sheriff's Department investigators Wednesday. Higgins was apprehended thanks to information received from another law enforcement agency and was jailed in the Wilkes County Jail under $25,000 secured bond late Wednesday afternoon.Wilkes Sheriff’s Office authorities said the two were connected to an attempted robbery in the Bojangle's parking lot in Jonesville about 6 a.m. Tuesday, an hour before the Wilkes incident, and that Higgins and Seymour are being investigated in connection with incidents in other area towns due to information Higgins shared, according to the Wilkes Sheriff’s Department.In the Wilkes incident, Brianne Mendola of Roaring River was robbed at the ATM as she was getting a small amount of cash for her 9-year-old daughter for school that day—the girl in the car when a gold-colored Toyota Highlander pulled in close to Mendola’s car. From that car, a man stepped out, showed a handgun, forced Mendola to get more money from the machine. Mendola showed the man she identified later as Higgins the ATM receipt as proof that she had withdrawn all the money she had. She said the man then returned to the Toyota and the two drove away drove away from the scene behind the Clingman Pit Stop.